Enter EPDs—voluntarily developed documents that provide standardized, third-party-verified data on a product's environmental performance. EPDs are applicable to all types of products and services—from carpets to keyboards to lumber—within clearly defined product categories and are used to facilitate purchase decisions in the same way that a nutrition label on a cereal box or an energy performance indicator on a refrigerator does. An EPD includes data on both project attributes and environmental impacts like climate change, depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer, acidification of land and water sources, eutrophication, formation of photochemical oxidants, etc. Typically, information on some or all of the following impacts is provided.

 

Unlike other environmental labels, an EPD is not a seal of approval. Because it doesn't promote a product's environmental benefits, but simply discloses verified environmental impact information, an EPD has the potential to lead both purchasers and manufacturers farther down the path toward sustainability. Buyers can select products with lower adverse environmental impacts, and manufacturers can understand the source of their product's environmental liabilities. "Both these drivers should lead to the reduction of environmental impacts," writes Rita Schenk, executive director of Institute for Environmental Research & Education in a white paper published by the group in 2009.

Western redcedar has one of the first wood-related EPDs in North America. Project: Orange Memorial Park; Marcy Wong & Donn Logan Architects

 

Primarily intended for use in business-to-business procurement, EPDs are certified to a transparent standard, the ISO Standard 14025. To meet this standard, EPDs must comply with three distinct criteria:

Use Product Category Rules (PCR) for the relevant product type. In short, PCRs can be thought of as a blueprint for what information is collected, measured, and then reported in the product LCA. PCRs are developed for a given product category, such as wood siding or carpet. They determine the scope, boundaries, functional unit, assessment criteria, product and environmental performance information that all manufactures must use for their product LCA, thereby ensuring consistency of data, calculations, and methodology.

While EPDs are owned by the company selling the product, PCRs are developed and owned by a third party, known as a program operator. Program operators assure that the rules are developed in a transparent manner per international standards, and that individual EPDs utilizing the PCR are completed with integrity.

Project: First Peoples House; Architect: Alfred Waugh

 

Be based on a Product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA is a tool recognized worldwide in measuring environmental impacts associated with a product or service, such as raw material acquisition, energy use and efficiency, content of materials and chemical substances, emissions to air, soil and water and waste generation.

Provide an EPD Report certified and signed by an outside expert. By meeting these three requirements, an EPD provides scientifically robust and transparent information about a product's environmental performance, and can be considered to be:

Objective—because it is based on scientifically accepted, valid methods set by international standards for LCA

Neutral—no claims are made, or predetermined environmental performance levels involved.

Flexible—the content can always be changed or updated subject to external review and verification.

Comparable—EPD-to-EPD comparisons are envisioned as being apples-to-apples comparisons because the data is collected, analyzed, and reported to comply with ISO standards for PCRs and LCAs.

Credible—EPDs are reviewed, approved, and verified by an independent expert

Accurate—EPD information must be continuously updated according to the company's procedures for documentation and follow-up.